Duff Review: Various Artists "Check One-2: Spirit of '79"

Specialized Records
4xCD (2xLP to be released on Jump Up Records)
2019

(Review by Steve Shafer)

At last, this is the 2 Tone 40th anniversary-related release that fans have been waiting for! While many of the key 2 Tone players are still too consumed with nursing past/present grievances to organize official 2 Tone concerts or make an effort to release rare or unheard material from the vaults, leave it to their progeny to do the heavy lifting to properly honor 2 Tone's legacy! Coming in at a weighty 67 songs spread out over four CDs, Specialized Record's Check One-2: Spirit of '79 is a stunningly good tribute to 2 Tone and all of its associated acts (bravo to all involved!). Honestly, there's not a bum track here.

As with all compilations of this type, it's split between bands who turned in fairly faithful renditions (despite comp producer Paul Ayriss specifically requesting participating acts not to record exact copies of the originals) and those who reinterpreted the tracks, injecting a bit of their own DNA to put a new spin on beloved, if very familiar, material. Notably, in addition to illustrating 2 Tone's enduring and global impact, a large number of the acts on Check One-2: Spirit of '79 feature female singers (Boss Riot, Malabo Ska, The Tremolites w/Valerie Etienne, The Scotch Bonnets, Third Beat Drop, The Pressure Tenants w/Eloise Berry, Project Blackbird, The Tinkerman, The Red Stripes, Erin Bardwell Collective, Well Charged, The Decatonics, The Reggaskas, RK Ska, Indeed)--finally rectifying the imbalance between 2 Tone's stated anti-sexist stance (in spite of some overtly sexist songs) and the relatively few women actually in 2 Tone bands back in the day.

Below are comments on some of the bands who went further afield in their cover versions that are worth calling out (and in no way is meant to slight the many acts on here who recorded really excellent covers that didn't stray too far from their source, including Napoleon Solo, Boomtown United, Boss Riot, Erin Bardwell Collective, The Porkers, The Bishops, Hub City Stompers, Rude Boy George, and others).

Disc One
The Inflatables "What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend": Dammers' dark no-wave jazz/reggae/pop gem is revved up to ska speed, giving it a sharper edge that underscores the lyrics' manipulation and duplicity even more than the original.
Detroit Riddim Crew "Three Minute Hero": The Selecter's frenetic, aggro frustration at punching in and out of soul-crushing, dead-end jobs is traded in for a more laid-back, but equally insistent rocksteady reading of this cut.
King Hammond "Murda! (Exodus 20:13)": The King delivers a bold Motown-ish take on The Selecter's cover of Owen and Leon Silvera's 1962 Blue Beat single; the Biblical reference, of course, relates to the sixth of the Ten Commandments--"Thou shall not kill"--and the song's original lyrics paraphrase part of Psalm 55 ("If I had a pair of wings, I would fly away...").
The Crombies "Click Click": This one's got even more menace and out-of-control-ness than The Beat's, as someone contemplates ending it all via a solo round of Russian Roulette.
The Communicators "The Selecter": Neol Davies and John Bradbury's seminal 2 Tone track that triggered the creation of that magnificent band is transformed into an awesome 2 Tone medley that weaves back and forth from this song to bits of "Three Minute Hero," "Do the Dog," "Rat Race," "On My Radio," "Nelson Mandela," and more.

Disc Two
J. Navarro and The Traitors "Ghost Town": Like their counterparts in Coventry, these boys from Detroit know what it's like to live in a formerly prosperous, but now decaying motor city; though their anger and dismay doesn't seethe and simmer, but boils over.
The Skapones "Do the Dog": Paul Willo and Co.'s take on The Specials' rendition of Rufus Thomas' "The Dog" is all "keep it cool, boy" swinging jazz, that is until the abrupt body blow shift to ska punk that knocks you off your feet, creating a tension and contrast appropriate for a song about all of theses factions itching to maim and kill each other.
Andy Keys Clark and Friends "Rasta Call You": Imagine this Rico cut in Maroon Town's hands or if the Potato 5 circa True Fact had covered it; the beat and sound are dance foor big, and the tempo's brisk.
Third Beat Drop "It's Up to You": The Specials' red or blue pill choice posed to its audience ("Take it or leave it we'll carry on regardless/If you don't like it you don't have to use it") about standing up to racism/fascism in one's everyday life is reframed as a seductive dare to do the right thing when white supremacists come for you.
Gruppo Sportivo "Mirror in the Bathroom": This radical, rock reworking of one of The Beat's signature tunes by this revived New Wave-era band probably shouldn't work, but succeeds brilliantly.
Vieja Skina "Nite Klub": Terry Hall's bile is drained away and substituted with a kind of louche joy; no one gives a damn if you have a job or future, which is freeing in its own perverse way.
The Pressure Tenants featuring Eloise Berry "Do Nothing": Laurel Aitken's former backing band delivers a wild soul/pop/dancehall reworking of one of Lynval Golding's finest moments; though the nonchalance at how things are is replaced by a knowing and weary sadness.
Heavensbee featuring Mista Rhee "Inner London Violence": These moonlighting Rude Boy George/Bigger Thomas members enlist The Boilers' Olivier Rhee (!) and his toasting skills for a UB40-like take on the Bad Manners classic about the veritable "Clockwork Orange" urban war zone right outside one's door.
Project Blackbird "Easy Life": This is an incredible jazz-AM pop version of The Bodysnatcher's brightest moment--about feeling some ambivalence over the choice between surrendering to sexist gender roles or mustering the will to fight for real gender equality.
The Tinkerman "Friday Night Saturday Morning": Ayriss took his own advice and he and his band mates created a gorgeous, lush, and ultimately very lonely rendition of Terry Hall's song, with lots of ice rink organ, synth washes, and dub effects--all to emphasize how leisure-time fun isn't really possible when there's no purpose to, or way forward in, your life.

Disc Three
Woltka Trawolta "Hands Off...She's Mine": Instead of trying to keep pace with The Beat's manic pace, this one heads in the opposite direction, giving it a lovely reggae skank, though the delivery comes across as more sincere, instead of The Beat's "spoof" on the fragile male ego, jealousy, and ridiculous notions of male "ownership" of women.
Well Charged "Street Feeling": This is less tightly wound and brighter than the original, but just as sharp, about someone striving to become hard in order to survive in the world outside one's home; and it's one of my favorite Selecter tracks.
The Feckin Ejits "Rat Race": Roddy Radiation's tune is presented as dirty punk rock, quite appropriately, as capitalism is an ugly, rigged game.
Martyn Callwood "Why?": Golding's stark original is compellingly fleshed-out musically--though the question about the senselessness of real-life racial knife attack he experienced remains the same.
Too Many Crooks "Concrete Jungle": Roddy's tale of struggling to evade endemic urban violence is recast as a cool Northern Soul/Dexys Midnight Runners track.

Disc Four
Orquestra Brasileira De Musica Jamaicana "Ghost Girl from Ipanema": At first, it may seem odd to incorporate sections of "The Girl from Ipanema" into The Specials' searing swan song, but if you think about it, both Thatcher's government and the girl walking to the beach in Rio wouldn't give the youth the time of day. (Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra should considering doing this version in addition to their "Ghost Planet"!)
Bim Skala Bim "Lorraine": Bim shaves off a bit of the domestic violence-y edge of this admittedly catchy and never meant to be serious Bad Manners tune by having a female singer respond to/question/make light of some of the more egregious statements; plus they present this track via their fantastic trademark sound, which is always winning.
Beat Bahnhof "Ska Wars": Arthur Kay's 1979 single is refashioned as a 1980s computer game-y, New Wave-influenced ska; offbeat, but it does the job well.
RK Ska "Run Me Down": I've been a fan of The Higsons' great funk cut since first hearing it in the early '80s on the New York City area radio station WLIR (which played it frequently), but didn't realize it was a 2 Tone release until years later (it's certainly an outlier on the label); and I love it as a ska song, too.
Subject A "Stereotypes": Taking up where The Specials' extended version left off (see The 2 Tone Story), this is a terrific, chat-filled dub.

All in all, Check One-2: Spirit of '79 reminds one of all of the brilliant original material (and choice '60s JA covers) recorded by the 2 Tone acts, much of which still holds extraordinary power and relevance four decades on. Of course, 2 Tone was always more than a label and roster of acts. It was a look, a scene, an attitude (tolerance, unity), and a movement that was part musical, part political (anti-racist, pro-democratic socialist-like governmental policies). Even if some of the original bands have lost the thread of all this, the fans haven't. Chrysalis, the songwriters, and the bands may own their respective copyrights, etc., but 2 Tone isn't really theirs. The spirit and message of 2 Tone belongs to--and lives on in--the fans and these bands.

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Proceeds of Check One-2: Spirit of '79 support three UK charities: the Teenage Cancer Trust, the National Foundation for Youth Music, and Tonic Music for Mental Health.

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Read Duff Guide to Ska reviews of other Specialized releases:

Boss: Tribute to the Original Sounds 7" singles
"Gifted: A Ska Tribute to The Jam" LP
Specialized: "A Modern Take on Specials Classics" 7" EP
Specialized II "Beat Teenage Cancer" 7" singles
Specialized III 7" singles and another Specialized III 7" single

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Duff Review: Rhoda Dakar "The Lotek Four, Volume II"

Self-Released
7" vinyl EP
2018

(Review by Steve Shafer)

This is the second--and really superb-- crowdfunded EP from the always extraordinary Rhoda Dakar and her boss band (Louis Vause on piano and Paul Tadman on bass--both of the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra; Lenny Bignell of Pama International and The Sidewalk Doctors on guitar; Mark Claydon from The Get Up on drums; and Terry Edwards of The Higsons and sometime Madness collaborator on horns). On The Lotek Four, Volume II, the soul influences that were quite present on Dakar's debut EP are even more pronounced--to great effect--on this set of really fine originals, all co-written with various members of the band (full disclosure, I was a supporter of this release; also, make sure to read our Duff Guide to Ska review of Dakar's first EP).

EP opener "Comfort Zone" is a fantastic jazzy-soul-ska cut that wouldn't have been out of place musically or thematically on The Special AKA's stellar In the Studio (Dakar's vocals, of course, were essential to the success of that album). The song's about going through life on auto-pilot--detached, ambivalent, without enjoyment; doing what you have to in order to get by ("The 9 to 5 is no good for me/Just busy keeping myself fed/To make a buck don't get me horny/I'd rather stay at home in bed...Save up that cash for that one rainy day/When the worst comes, I'll be up anyway..."). It's comfort zone as trap not refuge. "Welcome To My Themepark" is a Madness-y pop piss-take on the gentrification of Brixton, though it could just as easily apply to any formerly vibrant and funky urban neighborhood ruined by real estate developers' greed (huge swaths of Manhattan and Brooklyn have been transformed into playgrounds solely for the rich and fabulous). Dakar alternates between being an amusement park barker ("Ladies and gentlemen, by visiting Brixton police station at the end of your stay, anything of which you have been robbed--with the exception of your dignity--will be returned. Thank you for coming!"), and lamenting what has been lost: "It used to be a real town/Was a good life, not a fake one/And we lived that real good life/With our husbands and our wives."

The straight-up Stax-like "Back for More" finds the singer repeatedly trying to exit an emotionally abusive relationship: "You bide your time/I come back for more/Like a fool, I'm back for more." But the repeated chorus ends on a defiantly optimistic note: "I'm not coming back for more/I'm not coming back..." Everything ends too quickly with the ethereal "Love Notes (From Your Soul Team)," a wonderfully radiant, spirit-lifting track that is a sure-fired cure for anyone's blues. It also serves as a reminder of how vital close and caring friends are for staying sane and making it through this life: "You're on the same team/Not sure what it means/But you've faith in the friends who make it seem alright/We're your soul team/Here to stop you feeling sad/Takes a whole team/To antidote the bad/We're your soul team/Best support you've ever had/Sending love notes..." This is soul-pop perfection.

On the sleeve's liner notes, Dakar thanks her supporters for their leap of faith in funding both EPs in advance--well prior to hearing a note. And, once again, Dakar and Co. have delivered on their promise to their fans and then some. This is one small, but mightily impressive release.

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New Rhoda Dakar Pledge Music Project: The LoTek Four, Volume 1

Rhoda Dakar!

As a follow-up to her incredible, fan-funded Rhoda Dakar Sings The Bodysnatchers album (read The Duff Guide to Ska review here), Rhoda Dakar (Bodysnatchers, The Special AKA) is recording a series of EPs (on vinyl and CD) that will be funded/released through Pledge Music. The first volume of this LoTek Four series will start to be recorded next week (!) and is planned for a December release.

Here's the concept behind the LoTek Four series, as well as info on Rhoda's all-star musical collaborators:

"Each volume of the LoTek Four series takes four beautifully crafted songs and strips them back to their essence.  From there, recorded in the very best of surroundings, different versions can be engineered, versioneered, if you will. It may be that a rocksteady version is favoured, or perhaps an almost acoustic rendering.

The songs draw on Rhoda’s rich and personal musical influences, with Volume I embracing a fantastic array of story tellers and versioneers that include David Bowie, The Slits, Dolly Parton, Aretha, Gram and Emmylou, and her father, famed Jazz musician and entrepreneur Rudy Evans aka André Dakar.

Alongside Rhoda Dakar on lead vocals, The LoTek Four, Vol I features Louis Vause and Paul Tadman (from Crunch aka the Nutty Boys/Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra), Lenny Bignell (Pama International, The Sidewalk Doctors), Mark Claydon (The Get Up), and saxophonist Terry Edwards (PJ Harvey, The Blockheads, Tom Waits, Madness, Spiritualized, Siouxsie, Nick Cave, and his old 2 Tone label mates The Higsons)."

You can support Rhoda Dakar's The LoTek Four, Vol I Pledge Music project here. (Being the music obsessive I am, I've already pledged for both the vinyl and CD versions of this EP!) As of this date, the project is 94% funded with 44 more days to go...

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Life's Little Victories: Record Collecting Edition #3

Back in the early 80s, WLIR--the modern rock/new wave/post-punk station on Long Island that broadcast to the New York City metro area (and which brought a host of truly amazing and much needed music into my drab and unhappy adolescent life)--played a fair amount of angular, white-boy, post-punk funk from bands like APB, Gang of Four, Heaven 17, early Ministry, and many others dabbled in this style, from The Clash, the Talking Heads, to Duran Duran. And since new wave served as an umbrella for a host of non-pop-mainstream genres (and there was much more of a willingness for bands to venture into other genres then), I was exposed to--and loved--a lot of different types of music and bands.

Recently, several decades later, I found myself flipping through the bins at one of my favorite used record stores and came across The Higsons' "Run Me Down" 7" single on 2 Tone Records. I'd picked up their (non-ska) "Tear The Whole Thing Down" single a few months ago (their only other release on 2 Tone) and liked it enough--but not so much that it compelled me to immediately buy "Run Me Down" (it was in mint condition, but priced significantly higher than most of their other used singles--though not outrageously so). Plus, I'm not obsessed with acquiring every single 2 Tone release in all of their iterations...

However, later that day I looked up "Run Me Down" on YouTube and upon hearing it instantly recognized it as one of those post-punk funk songs that WLIR played the hell out of (though I never knew the name of the band that performed it, since the DJs didn't always announce the songs they played). It's track that I really liked then and one that now is very much a new wave classic (at least in the NYC area for a people of a certain age!). So, the next day, during my lunch break, I rushed over to the record shop and was relieved to find that no one had snapped it up (according to Discogs, the 7" single of this release is very hard to find, though the 12" version is still to be had).

"Run Me Down" is a brilliant rejection/put me out of my misery song--something I could relate to back then--but one with wry humor, a great groove, and you have to love the female backup singers' work here (listen to the song below)!

"You came around the corner in your big black car
and the lights danced on the windscreen
Blind behind your huge dark glasses
You slipped a smile that could have killed a cat

You said to me you should have run me down
I had to agree, I had to agree
'Cause we've been through hell to be standing here
On this dusty road with a burnt out future

It all began in that car of yours
It wasn't me you were making love to
You're squeezing me and still you smile
But a good assassination should be silent

I don't want you and you don't want me
So, why hang on to something that's dying?

I think it's sick the way you talk to your car
You won't ever talk to me
(You should have run me down)
The roads are littered with your accidents
Why won't you let me join them?
(You should have run me down)

I don't want you and you don't want me
So, why hang on to something, something that's dying?

(Come on boys, dump the car)
Set another round up on the bar
(Forget the past, forget the future)
Collapse into a drunken stupor

Run me down, you should have run me down
(You should have run me down)
Run me down, you should have run me down
(You should have run me down)
I wanna see it, I wanna hear it, I wanna live it!
(You should have run me down)
The feel of metal against my flesh
You should have run me down"

Duff Review: Spatial AKA Orchestra: "Ghost Planet" b/w "Free Nelson Mandela"

Ska Boots Series
7" single on purple or red vinyl
2014

(Review by Steve Shafer)

If you've lost the thread on Jerry Dammers over the past few years (he refused to be part of the spectacular Specials reunion tours of 2010, 2013, and 2014, but has been regularly DJing at clubs in the UK and continues to be involved in anti-racism organizations and activities, like Love Music, Hate Racism), you may not be aware that he has a new-ish group, the Spatial AKA Orchestra, which Dammers formed in the mold of--and as a tribute to--the late cosmic/free-form jazz pioneer Sun Ra (read what I wrote about The Spatial AKA Orchestra a few years ago here).

While some may be puzzled by Dammers' latest musical incarnation, the evolution from the muzak/lounge-influenced ska of the More Specials album and Ghost Town EP to the mix of no wave jazz, soul, reggae, and world beat of The Special AKA's In the Studio to the cosmic jazz of the Spatial AKA Orchestra shouldn't be that unexpected or jarring (Dammers himself has been quoted as saying, "Ska to Ra is not such a big leap. The best instrumental ska consists basically of a sort of dreamy, spiritual jazz, over a street rhythm.”). The Spatial AKA Orchestra (a brilliant 25 piece band that counts amongst its members ska legend/Specials and Special AKA member Rico Rodriguez, Madness collaborator/member of 2 Tone act The Higsons and saxophonist Terry Edwards, poet Anthony Joseph, and a slew of top UK jazz performers) has been gigging somewhat regularly in the UK and Europe (they played in London this past July), but they haven't officially released any recordings to date (nor is there any information out there about plans to go into the studio from the elusive Mr. Dammers).

So, it looks like the unnamed people behind the Ska Boots series are filling what demand there may be for recorded music from The Spatial AKA Orchestra (as a former ska indie label guy and current member of a band I'm generally very reluctant to purchase bootlegs--bands should get paid for their music--but the obsessive music/vinyl fan in me sometimes overrides my ethical concerns). The Spatial AKA Orchestra's "Ghost Planet" b/w "Free Nelson Mandela" 7" single is derived from live TV performances of the band--"Ghost Planet" is from a 2010 "Later...with Jools Holland" show and "Free Nelson Mandela" comes from a Channel 4 BBC TV appearance.

The Spatial AKA Orchestra's "Ghost Planet" is an even angrier and more searing version of The Specials' extraordinary 1981 hit "Ghost Town" and its updated lyrics--as one of the members of The Specials' fan site so accurately and succinctly describes it--are "a damning summation of decline."

"Ghost Planet"

"This town is coming like a ghost town
All the buildings have been torn down
This place is coming like a drag place
A dead place
Wipe the smile from a child's face

This world is coming like a ghost planet
Man a feel like an ant on this here planet
If you treat man like mouse he will breed
Treat man like fly and he will swarm

This world is coming like a rubbish tip
It coming like a cesspit
That's feeding on its own vomit
Coming like a rubbish dump
In need of a stomach pump

This place is coming like a disgrace
A child's smile turned into a ghost place
This place was a back-stabbing, greedy, corrupt place
What, what is that, what is that sweet, sickly smell?
Is it heaven turned into hell?"

The reggae groove of the original has been worn down to a plodding (death) march to oblivion in this version, but it's as haunting and powerful as the original--maybe even more so, since humanity is still plagued by many of the same formidable problems we were facing back in 1981 and then some.

"Free Nelson Mandela" is a much happier affair--musically, not too dissimilar from the original--and presented as an instrumental, perhaps because the lyrics are no longer relevant, with Mandela long-ago freed (and now free of this mortal coil), and the South African apartheid system of governing peacefully dismantled years ago.

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Life's Little Victories: Record Collecting Edition #1

Last week, as I was re-reading sections of Paul "Willo" Williams' wonderful and definitive biography of The Specials, "You're Wondering Now: The Specials from Conception to Reunion," I came across a section detailing some of the rare versions of 2 Tone releases that the collector might want to try to track down. While I'm not a 2 Tone completist, whenever I stumble upon a 2 Tone release that I don't have, of course, I'll grab it (within the last few months at the same used record store, I found and bought copies of The Apollinaires' "The Feeling's Gone" and The Higsons' "Tear the Whole Thing Down" singles, both of which I'd never seen before, since they were never released in the US--and ended up ordering the 10" Special AKA "War Crimes" single via Discogs). But reading about the 2 Tone rarities in Willo's book rekindled my interest in them.

So, while I was looking at a Comsat Angels single on eBay, I checked out a few of the other New Wave-era singles that the seller was offering and found a near mint copy of one of the self-released/Rough Trade-distributed (and pre-Chrysalis) singles of The Specials' "Gangsters" b/w The Selecter's "The Selecter" (though without the stamped sleeve). Since it wasn't pricey (and I only had the US pressing of this single in my collection), I bid on it and won. When it arrived this week, I put it on my turntable and was surprised to find that A) the paper labels were reversed (so "The Selecter" track was on the side with the "Gangsters" label and vice versa), and B) this version of "Gangsters" fades out at the end!

I'm not sure how many of these are out there (they're not mentioned in Willo's book), but I'm thrilled to unexpectedly have a mislabeled version of "Gangsters" come into my collection!

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Update (8/27/14): Paul Willo just got his hands on Jerry Dammers' test pressing of "Gangsters," which apparently has a different mix than the version of the song that was eventually released. I can't think of anyone else in the world who deserves to have that rarest of rare 2 Tone singles in his collection! Congrats, Willo!

Destination Unknown

Due to some changes in my work situation--I'm a freelancer right now--I just happened to have the time to stop by a grungy off-the-beaten-track East Village record shop packed with pretty reasonably priced used vinyl from every genre imaginable. In the cheapie crates out front, amidst a surprising number of Chuck Mangione LPs (?), I managed to unearth a 12" single of Longsy D's 1989 acid ska hit "Mental Ska (The Rap)" for a buck (here I cop to owning the definitive UK ska acid comp Ska Beats 1: The Street Sound of Freestyle Ska LP that I bought back then), as well as the late Mikey Dread's "The Source of Your Divorce" 12" promo from the KRS One-produced Funky Reggae Crew/Strictly Hip-Hop Reggae Fusion comp that came out that same year (and featured The Unity 2's "Shirlee"). What can I say, it was the late 80s and bands and fans from all of the underground scenes in NYC still mixed and mashed in all sorts of amazing ways...

Inside, in the surprisingly well-stocked New Wave section (I was in high school and college during the 80s and became a huge New Wave/post-punk fan--this was one of the best decades for music ever), I came across a near-mint copy of The NY Citizens' On the Move LP for four dollars. (I already own a copy or two of this, but the collector in me said to snap it up--Moon won't ever be making any more of them.) I also spotted a Higsons 2 Tone 12" single, which I may go back for, even if it was a little pricey (I do love that label).

Sure, I've been able to track down all kinds of ska and reggae releases on my want list through the internet, but nothing beats just digging through the stacks and taking pleasure in what you just happen to find...